Anxietized Welcoming
by bluejeans16
Summary: Amber arrives at Horizon for the first time. Will she be able to take the constant watching and the peircing criticism?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own the character's in this story, except Amber.  
  
Editor's Note: Hope you like it. Its my first. Hit me up with reviews, good or bad. I just wanna be a better writer and what can I say I love Higher Ground.  
  
I woke up in the car. Climbing the mountain. I had a horrible headache. For some reason my parents had insisted on driving me all the way to Horizon from our "home" in Tennessee. I could barely see anything because I'd slept in my contacts and the crushed Doritos embedded in the car seat were on my last nerves. But finally we were there and I heard us pull up on a thick rocky gravel to a place that looked like it would be my worst hell and my greatest sanctuary. I quickly stepped out of the car. I hated that car. I looked down at the rocks. For some reason they seemed so inviting. Slate gray. And big enough to do a good amount of damage to something. A older man approached the car. He was muscular and not half bad looking. "Hi! I'm Peter." "Oh yes, we spoke on the phone. You run horizon, don't you?" "Yes, a passion and a curse," he said with a cute smile and a little laugh. Quickly why both my parents and Peter's attention was adverted I found a stone and placed my razor under it. I knew how rigid the checks were. I'd heard the stories. I was prepared.  
  
After the talks and initiations they sent me off to my dorm. I was to be a cliffhanger. It sounded morbid to me. Especially for a place like this. I wonder if one of the students made it up.  
I laid my bag down on my bed. I remembered packing. Crying over having to leave my friends. The only family I had, and I didn't even have many pictures of them. So the few I did have I stuffed in an envelope. I pulled out the envelope now and took the pictures and my tape and taped them to my window. I hated sunlight anyway. Then I remembered my razor. I hated leaving it out there. What if it rained? So I went back out and tried to act like I was just looking around, grabbed my razor and stuffed it in my pocket and took off towards the dorm. I was just sliding it into my drawer when I heard a voice come from the doorway.. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. They always check the newbies several times after they get here." It was a girl. She had blonde hair, blue eyes. But she wasn't your all-American sweetheart. She had a vengeance in her eyes. "I'm Amber," I say as I struggle to get up and shake hands. Old habit. She looks at my hand and then up at me as if I'm the dumbest person on earth. "I would introduce myself, but it doesn't look like you're going to be here long." "Well, this is my first school, at least I got it past first checks, and hey I grew up in the South. We're bred to shake hands and curtsy and shit," I said to my defense. She looked at me again. She had a little grimace on her face. "Fine. I'll show you my hiding spot. But if you tell a fucking soul you'll regret it the rest of your life. Oh, and by the way, my name's Shelby."  
  
We walked to the back of a big pile of wood under a shed and there were a few bricks lying around back there too. "These are perfect for hiding things in. Just don't mess with other people's stuff, or they get really pissed and hunt you down." She began to walk off. "Wait," I said, feeling a bit helpless and dumb, "I don't think mine will do well in this environment." I flash her the razor. She laughs sarcastically. Don't worry baby, you can sneak a plastic bag from the kitchen during clean-up. Just put it there like it is for now." She walks off. You place your razor in the very middle of all the bricks. You know its stupid. But its yours, and in a new place like this, its one of the few things you have to yourself.  
  
"Hey Amber, I'm glad I found you." It was Peter. You'd been walking around the campus trying to find the good spots to get away. "You have group in the main building. Come on, I'll take you there." You walk with Peter into the building. The whole place is a log cabin nightmare. It reminds you of old vacations with your family. You begin to feel sickly and want to run the other direction. But you know you can't. You know there are worse places than this. So you sit down in the only available seat, and the charade begins. "Okay everyone, this is Amber, if you haven't already met her," says Peter, "This is your counselor Sophie and the other cliffhangers Scott, Juliette, Auggie, Shelby, Daisy, and Freakin as he likes to be called." You look at everyone, draw in your knees and try your best not too look like a cry baby, as you figure Shelby has already spread word. "So whats your diagnosis?" asks the dark haired girl identified earlier as Daisy. "Bipolar with social anxiety. Tried to kill myself, unsuccessfully. I was on homebound in school and I still couldn't go back so my parents decided they couldn't take anymore of me and sent me here." You stare at all of them. What are they thinking of you? You hate this part. You hate not knowing. 


	2. Chapter 2

I sat on my bed watching the little clock I'd purchased. If I put my ear close enough I could hear the ticking. To most people, this would be an annoyance. But I'd always found it soothing to hear it. It never stopped. Just a constant rhythm. I figured that in constancy, all problems dissolved. And when I listened to clocks, mine did, for a little while anyway. I heard a rustle across the room. "Hey um, Amber are you up?" said the shy, overly nice voice of Juliette. I was scared of her. I couldn't say why. But I was. "Yeah, why?" "Oh, I can't sleep either. Do you um, wanna talk about anything. I mean I know its hard getting settled in at Horizon. If you ever just want to talk then I'm here for you." Somehow you'd figured she would have said that eventually. You guessed it was nice, but still. Something scared you about her. She seemed too familiar. Finally I fell asleep to the ticking of my clock. Trying to keep thoughts of Juliette leering over me in my sleep out of my head.  
  
"Goodmorning sunshine!" declares Daisy suddenly as she's standing in the middle of the dorm. You look up at her. She must be on crack! "Oh go to bed, and quit trying to scare the newbie," Shelby yelled from underneath her pillow. "What Shells, have a bad night? Is Scott turning you down in your dreams now too?" replies Daisy. "Oh fuck you, you know I gave up on that clueless idiot years ago. I don't want the princess' leftovers, even though there is so much left," Shelby remarks smugly. Juliette tries to ignore them as she gets up and starts brushing her hair. I lay in the bed and stare at the ceiling. More logs. I'm almost missing the speckled sheet rock that was my bedroom. I looked in my bag and pulled out some miniature glow in the dark stars and started tacking them up next to my pictures. It was beginning to look like a shrine already and I'd only been here less than a day. Shelby comes over and starts glancing at the pictures. "Mmmmmm. Who's he?" "Oh well he's uh, my ex/best friend. We were starting to get back together before I left. But that's history. There's no fucking way he'll want a screwed up girl like me, stuck up here when he could have anyone he wants there." "Don't you just love resentment and how cruel timing can be?" says Shelby. You look at her peculiarly. She's so beautiful. You almost want to kiss her.  
  
During lunch Daisy fills you in on why everyone else is there. Now you've figured it all out. Now you know why Juliette creeps you out, Shelby intrigues you, and Scott still has really nice hair. The food is half edible, so you eat half. You figure by the time your outta here you'll have lost all the weight you could dream of. "So, your life back home. I mean from what you said before... well. It just didn't sound like things were that bad," says Daisy. "Yeah, well, I dunno. Its so hard to explain. I think if I could explain it, I could extract it from myself, be over it, and out of here. This may sound silly, but I'd give anything to see my cat." "Oh no, we hear that a lot, except you substitute cat with crack or various other narcotics," Daisy jokes, "But seriously, describe the inner Amber... or else I'll have to do some rummaging of my own, and I don't think you want that." "I am the girl along the side of the road. She searches for truth. She searches for the reasons. The reasons to why everything happens. She's never satisfied. After biting into an apple she throws it away and asks for a new one. She's greedy, but not to keep. She's inconstant, indefinite, and yet thrown off by the simplest fork in the road. She is the opposite of perfection." "Oh do grace us with more words, for we peasants live for a poetic mouth to feed our starving souls," replies Daisy with a laugh. You know she was kidding, but somehow it hits you a bit deeply. You opened up to her, why is she laughing. You hate it when people do that. Your parents always did that. Maybe that's why it started. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Okay class," says Peter, "I have a project for you." Multiple groans heard around the room. "Since you just finished reading White Oleander and the book was about surviving and such and having to live in different places under different circumstances I want you all to make a suitcase just like she did in the book. Now here's the parameters. It has to be about your life at home. We're kind of doing this as a educational/counseling mix-in. You know. The usual." He looks over at you. "And Amber you don't have to do this assignment since you just arrived, unless of course you know the story."  
"Actually its one of my favorite books," you find yourself quickly saying.  
That Day you leave class finding yourself thinking, how do you fill a suitcase with nothingness?  
  
You pace up and down the girl's dorm. Its happening again. Your skin is itching and you just want to run, but you know you can't because of your asthma and also, well, school rules.  
"What's wrong with newbie?" remarks Shelby as she walks in from taking a shower. "I thought she wasn't a user. Looks to me like she's having withdrawals.  
"Should I go get Peter?" asks Juliette in a panicky tone. You can tell she feels like backing into a corner and crying. She almost always looks like that. You want to scream at her. To make her do exactly that.  
"Hey guys, I'm fine. I just have this problem with night and sometimes I can't contain myself. I just want to be everywhere at once and I can't. I can't even fucking run because of my asthma. I'm sorry, I know the pacing is annoying. I'll go outside." You walk out as soon as you finish your sentence, leaving the apparently uncaring crowd.  
You walk to the side of a building, crouch down and lay your back against it and begin trying to talk yourself out of it.  
"Its all okay, you're fine. Why do you always fucking do this? You were fine earlier and now you're psycho freak. Everyone here is going to hate you. They'll eventually just send you to a mental hospital if you keep this up. And then you'll be drugged all the time."  
"Who said there was anything wrong with that?" You turned around to see Ezra.  
"Well actually it would be quite nice, its just not what I'm going for. I'm trying to get back home. I mean. I need my friends. I need my cat."  
"Yes, Daisy said you had a special attachment to furry felines."  
'He's really weird,' you think to yourself, but then you think, 'Hey, who am I to judge.' "So, you think I'm weird don't you, sitting out here talking to myself. Well your right. I am. I'm a complete freak. And nobody gets me. They all were sick of my whining to and about myself, so they sent me here. So what do you think? I hear you have good insights on people."  
He squints his eyes at you, "I'd say you've seen way too many psychologists and therapists and that you've thought this out way too much and because of that you're either way ahead or way behind the rest of us."  
"Not really what I was going for, but probably true," you look at him closer. He doesn't seem so bad. He could even be a kindred spirit. "So tell me something. Keep my spastic mind occupied."  
"Like what?"  
"Like what's the whole deal with Juliette, Scott, and Shelby?"  
"Oh the love triangle. Hmm. That's an old story. Scott used to go out with Juliette, but they got in a fight because there's kind of this thing going on between Juliette and Auggie. And Shelby just straight out wants Scott. Or did anyway. Now she's kinda pissed at him actually. He's just not a reliable guy. That's all I know about it. People don't clue me in on much. I'm like the outcast of the outcasts. The only time they call on me is when they need drug advice. You're not an addict though are you?"  
  
"Nope, that's one of the few things I can say I am not."  
  
Another shadow creeps up from behind and you hear the unmistakable voice of Daisy. "Oh dear I do hope I'm not interrupting anything. Okay, I take it back. I was hoping to catch someone in the act. But now that I see its you Ezra I know its safe to say I'm not."  
"Well sadly it is true. I'm sure such an honorable lady as this wouldn't be caught doing such barbaric things up against a wall anyway," he looks at you strangely, "But now I must bid you both farewell. For the hour has come for slumber."  
He walks off to the boys dorm and you kind of check him out as best you can. Hes not too bad, just a little strange. You wonder why he's such an outcast and instantly turn to Daisy to find the answer.  
"I don't know he just is. He acts awkwardly. And I mean its not like this is normal-ville or anything, but he's still just his own breed you know. Ah, you'll figure it out once you've been around him longer. Come on, back to the dorms before Juliette gets worried and goes to get Peter for a search of the grounds," she laughs and so do you. You almost felt like you were beginning to fit in here, but it couldn't be that easy. It never had been before. 


End file.
